This was a study which sought to investigate the perceptions and experiences of private health care providers in Mafikeng, North West Province about generic medicines. The escalating cost of medicine in South Africa and elsewhere in the world has necessitated government intervention to come up with strategies to make health care accessible and affordable to the majority of the people. In South Africa, the Medicine and Related Substances Control Amendment Act (Act I0I of 1965), was implemented in May 2003. The Act makes it compulsory for pharmacist to offer patients generic medicines, apart from exceptions listed by the Medical Control Council and, if substitution takes place, to inform the doctor. The study was a prospective, cross- sectional survey of private health care providers in the greater Mafikeng area using a self- administered structured questionnaire. Participants received a structured questionnaire by hand mail and were given the same time to complete it. The questionnaires were them collected from their respective rooms. The main outcome measures were age, level of education, current occupation/profession and their perception and experiences about generic medicines. The total number of respondents was thirty two (32) out of forty (40) private health care providers who received the copies of the questionnaires. One questionnaire was incompletely answered and was therefore excluded from the final analysis. Seven questionnaires were returned unanswered. Age ranged from 26 to 51 and all had one or two university degrees. On average, private health care providers in Mafikeng perceived generic medicines and patent medicines to be identical and bioequivalent. Majority of the respondents prescribed generic medicines as their first line of treatment and were aware of the mandatory generic substitution law. According to the respondents, the majority of patients were not well informed about generic medicines. Majority of respondents were satisfied with the safety, quality, performance characteristics, intended use and route of administration of generic medicines. There is a need for a common essential drug list that will be used by all medical aids schemes in South Africa, wider generic prescribing in both the public and private health sector, speeding up the process of manufacturing generics, health care providers complying fully with the mandatory generic substitution law, parallel importation of generic medicines when a need arises and a widespread promotional campaigns targeting mainly consumers and health professionals. / Mini dissertation (M.B.A. (Financial Man.) North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, 2004

This thesis is an analytical ethnography of children, aged between six and twelve, who live in Vanlose, a local district of Copenhagen, Denmark. The data were produced during fourteen months of fieldwork in the children's homes, their local school and two after school centres. The methodological insights produced through this point to the importance of a dialogical, reflexive ethnography in conducting research with children. The thesis develops synergies between two theoretical frameworks: first, a reformed anthropology of children; second, critical medical anthropology, in particular the notion of sickness as cultural performance. The study focuses on children as individual and collective actors in interaction with other children and with adults during everyday illness and minor accidents. The cultural performance approach allows illness to become a lens revealing key aspects of childhood in contemporary Danish society. The substantive chapters of the thesis are organised around the five themes that emerged during the fieldwork: illness as a variety of `time-off' and its cultural similarities and differences with family holidays; children's collective action in help-giving at school and after school centres; children's cultural learning about the body in its subjective and objective forms; the cultural constitution of children as vulnerable and the implications of this for interactions during illness; and, finally, the constitution of children's' competence in illness and treatment. A key theme developed through the thesis is the cultural representation of children in the past, present, and future. It is shown that children's present lives and subjective experiences tend to be subordinated to understandings that give priority to childhood as a symbol of a nostalgia for the past or as a hope for the future. The thesis ends with a discussion of children's greater potential as contributors to health and self care and its implications for their wider participation in social life.

The study examines the work of the coroner. The thesis is sociological in orientation and method, drawing where necessary from other disciplines, e.g. law, philosophy. The study concentrates upon the nature of coroners' categorisations and the production of the socially recognised 'facts of sudden death'. While detailed consideration is given to the inquest and inquest verdicts, the whole range of coroners' work is examined. Differing but complementary research methods are employed to yield essentially qualitative material. Existing sociological studies, e.g. of 'official statistics' and of suicide, are evaluated. Coroners' methods of ascribing meaning to sudden death are examined. An important aim is to render processes of construction 'visible' for sociological study.Part One (Chapters One and Two) opens with a review of theoretical issues in sociology. The methodology of the study is 'located' within sociological theory. Part One continues with an historical discussion of the office of coroner, and an outline of legislation and formal medico-legal procedure.Part Two (Chapters Three, Four and Five) forms the largest section of the study, consisting of material collected by field research, i.e., interviews with the coroners of five counties, systematic observation of inquests, and unpublished/published statistics. Provisional conclusions are discussed as the study progresses, covering topics which include, inter alia: discretionary authority; the inquest as court of law; the differing perceptions of individual coroners; the relevance of historical factors; the Press; methods of constructing the verdict; the roles of doctors, pathologists and police; social control; official statistics; and historical and geographical statistical variations.Part Three (Chapters Six and Seven) draws overall conclusions about coroners' accounts of sudden death. It places coroners work within bureaucratic and ideological contexts. The work of the coroner is situated in terms of the ways society conceives of and deals with death as a whole.Two short appendices add further statistics and further methodological details.

This thesis considers the current requirements for data security in European healthcare systems and establishments. Information technology is being increasingly used in all areas of healthcare operation, from administration to direct care delivery, with a resulting dependence upon it by healthcare staff. Systems routinely store and communicate a wide variety of potentially sensitive data, much of which may also be critical to patient safety. There is consequently a significant requirement for protection in many cases. The thesis presents an assessment of healthcare security requirements at the European level, with a critical examination of how the issue has been addressed to date in operational systems. It is recognised that many systems were originally implemented without security needs being properly addressed, with a consequence that protection is often weak and inconsistent between establishments. The overall aim of the research has been to determine appropriate means by which security may be added or enhanced in these cases. The realisation of this objective has included the development of a common baseline standard for security in healthcare systems and environments. The underlying guidelines in this approach cover all of the principal protection issues, from physical and environmental measures to logical system access controls. Further to this, the work has encompassed the development of a new protection methodology by which establishments may determine their additional security requirements (by classifying aspects of their systems, environments and data). Both the guidelines and the methodology represent work submitted to the Commission of European Communities SEISMED (Secure Environment for Information Systems in MEDicine) project, with which the research programme was closely linked. The thesis also establishes that healthcare systems can present significant targets for both internal and external abuse, highlighting a requirement for improved logical controls. However, it is also shown that the issues of easy integration and convenience are of paramount importance if security is to be accepted and viable in practice. Unfortunately, many traditional methods do not offer these advantages, necessitating the need for a different approach. To this end, the conceptual design for a new intrusion monitoring system was developed, combining the key aspects of authentication and auditing into an advanced framework for real-time user supervision. A principal feature of the approach is the use of behaviour profiles, against which user activities may be continuously compared to determine potential system intrusions and anomalous events. The effectiveness of real-time monitoring was evaluated in an experimental study of keystroke analysis -a behavioural biometric technique that allows an assessment of user identity from their typing style. This technique was found to have significant potential for discriminating between impostors and legitimate users and was subsequently incorporated into a fully functional security system, which demonstrated further aspects of the conceptual design and showed how transparent supervision could be realised in practice. The thesis also examines how the intrusion monitoring concept may be integrated into a wider security architecture, allowing more comprehensive protection within both the local healthcare establishment and between remote domains.

No description available.

No description available.

Typescript. / Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1986. / Bibliography: leaves 209-223. / Photocopy. / xvi, 223 leaves, bound 29 cm

Typescript. / Bibliography: leaves [273]-289. / Photocopy. / Microfilm. / xvi, 289 leaves, bound ill. 29 cm

Mode of access: World Wide Web. / Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 108-118). / Electronic reproduction. / Also available by subscription via World Wide Web / x, 118 leaves, bound ill. 29 cm

Objective: The aim of the study was to evaluate the clinical outcomes of oral implant treatment provided at the School of Dentistry, University of Otago from 1989 to 2005. Methods: Oral implant patients (n=320) with 586 implants were identified and invited to attend for a clinical examination. Implant demographics of all the patients were extracted from the files. Implant demographics of the examined and unexamined patients were compared to assess if the examined patients were representative of the total group. One hundred and three patients with 214 implants agreed to attend for an examination. In the clinical examination full mouth plaque scores, probing depths, bleeding on probing and suppuration were measured. In addition, around implants recession and width of keratinized gingiva were also recorded. For the radiographic examination, baseline radiographs and radiographs taken at the time of examination were digitized and compared to measure the amount of bone lost or gained around implants using NIH Image J software. Results: There were equal numbers of males and females with a mean age of 46.3 � 15 years at the time of implant placement. The smoking history at the time of examination was recorded, 56% of the patients were non-smokers, 37% former smokers, and 7% were current smokers. More than half of the implants (56%) were placed in the anterior region. Based on the type of implant system, 79% were Branemark implants, 10% Straumann, 6% Southern implants and 4% were unknown. Most of the patients (64%) had implant-supported crowns, 19% had fixed denture prostheses, and 17% had implant-supported overdentures. The overall implant survival rate was 97.7% with five implants lost (2.3%) and 8 implants treated for peri-implantitis (3.8%). The mean PD around implants was 2.3mm (SD 0.6mm), mean recession was 0.5mm (SD 0.8mm) and mean attachment level of 2.8mm (SD 0.9mm). Probing depths [greater than or equal to] 4mm with BOP were recorded around implants in 8.9% of patients. The mean full mouth plaque score was 30% while mean plaque score around implants was 15.9%. The average bone loss around implants was 0.3mm (SD 0.8). Maximum bone loss observed was 2.9 mm. Conclusion: The prevalence of peri-implant inflammation and implant survival rates in this group of patients appeared comparable to that reported in the literature. The prevalence of peri-implant lesions was low in the group of patients examined.